"You ever had those weird dreams where people keep switching roles (like the Green Lantern in Justice League's 'The Once and Future Thing, Part 2') and everyone just sort of doesn't notice? Well, when I first dreamed up this story (literally) Sam and 'Dexter' here kept turning into Princess Zelda and TK from Digimon 02. Not extremely relevant to this chapter, but I thought it worth mentioning in case this story wasn't weird enough as is." -Casey
Chapter Two: Phantom
Footsteps
Danny blew his icy breath against the glass surface of
his prison and it fogged up. He used his fingers to doodle pictures of rockets
and stars as he thought fondly about growing up to be an astronaut. His mother
and father had never really encouraged his dream, but maybe they’d let him
pursue it now that he could no longer take the ghost hunting throne.
A gentle humming noise began to echo from somewhere
outside the laboratory. Danny turned away from his fading doodles and pressed
his ear against the glass of his cylindrical prison. The sound was coming from
below him in the east wing. Danny knew the castle well enough to guess that it
was coming from the Grand Ballroom.
The castle had been quiet for two whole days, with no
sign of Lord Masters. Danny was starting to go stir crazy alone in the
laboratory and this distant humming was the most interesting distraction he’d
had all day. He focused his powers and pressed his hand hard against the glass,
trying to phase through it. The glass began to glow with a strange blue light
and then he was knocked back by a sudden jolt. He slammed head first into the
opposite side of the cylinder and was knocked to his knees by yet another jolt.
“Stupid anti-ghost glass!” he muttered as he rubbed the back of his head.
The ghost boy pressed his ear to the ground to listen for
the strange humming and realized something he should have figured out earlier;
the floor of the lab was still made of metal. He quickly turned himself
completely intangible and fell through the floor. He plummeted towards the
floor of the entryway, bracing himself with a yelp. Then he stopped, levitating
just inches above the ground in his solid form once again.
“Huh, you’d think Lord Masters would have thought of
that,” Danny mused as he looked back up towards the ceiling.
The humming sounded again and now that it was just a door
away, he could clearly hear that it was the sound of music. He quickly flew up
to the main doors to the Grand Ballroom and pressed his ear up against it.
“One, two, three, One two, thre---ow!” he heard someone say over the music.
“Sorry!” another voice apologized.
Danny phased through the double doors cautiously and
found that the Ballroom was decorated with lights and balloons and that the
music was coming from a boom box on the main stage in the corner.
In the middle of the main dance floor stood Lady Sam
Manson, her hair made up into long stands that resembled the legs of a spider
and her dress had an equally beautiful and gothic.
Danny didn’t recognize the girl’s would be dance partner.
He had short blond hair, bright blue eyes, and was wearing a black tux with a
bow tie. “Sorry about that,” the boy told Sam. “Sometimes I feel like I have
two left feet.”
“Not a problem,” Sam assured him. “But we’re not going
get anywhere if you keep apologizing every misstep.”
“Sorry,” the boy sighed.
“Prince Dexter, I realize that it can be hard moving into
a new kingdom, but you can relax. There’s nothing scary about the Fenton
Kingdom.” As Lady Manson finished assuring the prince, she glanced up towards
the door and saw the translucent form of the ghost boy staring back at her. She
cried out in surprise and Danny fell through the door with a yelp.
He was lying on the tile floor of the ballroom now,
completely visible, with the two royal teens staring down at him. He quickly
jumped to his feet and backed up against the door, too flustered to phase
through it.
“I---uh---I can explain!” he stuttered as he glanced
between the two older kids.
“You’re a ghost!” Prince Dexter announced as he pointed
down at the boy.
“No, no! You don’t understand!” Danny wanted to explain,
but he knew that his existence had to remain a secret.
The young girl stepped towards him, her eyes wide with
wonder as she reached out her hand. She placed it on the boy’s shoulder
tentatively and Danny flinched from how warm her hand felt against his eerily
cold skin.
“You are a
ghost, aren’t you?” she asked in awe.
“Kinda…” he admitted, figuring that an explanation about
the difference between ghosts and half-ghost would only cause more trouble.
“That’s…” she began, staring into his glowing green eyes.
“That’s awesome!”
“Beg pardon?” Danny and Dexter asked in chorus.
Lady Mason turned back to her dance partner with
excitement twinkling in her eyes. “You never see stray ghosts wandering around
this Kingdom!” she explained. “Not with the Fearsome Fentons ruling over the
lands!”
“You’re not freaking out?!” Prince Dexter shouted,
clearly freaked out by the matter.
“I should probably go,” Danny said as he reached for the
doorknob.
“Wait! Please don’t!” the girl implored as she turned
back to the ghost-boy. “I’m Sam Manson and this is Prince Dexter Poyne. What’s
your name?”
“I’m Danny Fent-fen-fen---Phantom!” he faltered as he
realized that he couldn’t tell them that he was the prince.
“Danny Phantom? A bit on the nose there, Slick,” Dexter
pointed out, causing Sam to elbow him in the ribs.
“You don’t have to be afraid of us,” the girl assured
Danny. “Why don’t you stay and dance with us? Prince Dexter needs all the
practice he can get.”
Prince Dexter frowned at her comment, but Danny hardly
took notice. He’d worried for weeks that people would run in fear at the sight
of him, but these teenagers were acting perfectly accepting of his ghostly
appearance. “You guys aren’t afraid of me?” he asked.
“You think you’re the first ghost we’ve ever seen?”
Dexter asked dubiously.
“And you’re like eight years old,” Lady Manson pointed
out.
“I’m ten!” Danny corrected, though his voice choked with
laughter. He’d forgotten how much fun it was to hang out with kids his own age.
“I guess I could hang out for a little while.”
“Great!” the girl hollered as she leapt across the
ballroom to turn up the volume on her boom box. A fast pace beat began to play
and Dexter quickly took to spinning and pointing.
Danny floated over to offer his hand to Lady Manson, able
to do so at eye level while he was floating on air.
“May I have this dance, Lady Manson?” he asked in a very
princely manner.
“Please call me Sam,” she replied. “And yes, you may.”
She took his hand and then pulled him across the dance
floor while spinning around dizzyingly. She made some joke about Danny being
really light on his feet, but he didn’t really hear her over the pounding
music. They spun and flailed through the whole CD for almost an hour before Sam
insisted that they get back to serious practicing.
Sam took turns demonstrating the dance steps with Danny,
who knew them all very well, and then practicing them with Prince Dexter. Danny
did his best not to laugh at the Prince’s efforts, but he snickering carried
throughout the room.
“Everybody’s a critic,” Dexter sighed with a half hearted
smile.
“Sorry, Dex,” Danny apologized. “It took me years to
learn those moves.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but I had just finished learning to walk, so I guess
that was kind of a factor.”
Danny laughed at his own joke and then Sam walked over to
turn off the boom box. “Well, boys, this has been great, but I need to get back
to the other preparations for the ball,” she announced.
“Same time tomorrow, doll?” Dexter asked with a wink.
“Of course, but don’t ever call me that again,” she
warned with a frown.
“Sure thing, Sam,” he agreed, before turning to Danny.
“Hey, will you be back here tomorrow, Phantom?”
“Uh…well,” he hesitated as his friends looked at him expectantly.
Master Masters had always stressed that no one could know his secret. The
half-ghost son of the famous ghost hunting Fentons would ruin the family name
and the kingdom would lose faith in its King. He couldn’t risk that, but Sam
and Dexter wouldn’t tell, would they?
“I’ll be here,” he said with a smile.
He quickly turned intangible and then flew out of the
ballroom through the roof. To his satisfaction, he heard Sam say something
about how awesome that was as he left. He’d have to figure out a couple of new
tricks before he saw them again. Who knew that having ghost powers could
actually be kind of cool?
Danny flew back through the floor of the
laboratory and settled back into his glass cylinder prison. Master Vlad Masters
was nowhere to be seen, so what harm could there be in sneaking out a couple
more times?
Danny Phantom (C) Nickelodeon
Story (C) SuperheroGeek13
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